Harry Potter, the boy-who-died but no quite
by MarcheMort
Summary: Harry has been fighting Voldemort all his life and is getting desperate. ONE-SHOT to get me back into writing. How far would you go to succeed in your goals?


Harry Potter... the Boy-Who-Died... but not quite.

Hey guys! As I don't know how many of you that are subscribed to me actually speak or read English, a small French message will follow. If you've never read my other (French) story, do not concern yourself with it.

Bonjour! Premièrement, j'ai le plaisir de vous annoncer que je ne suis pas mort! Une update plus en profondeur sera faite sur mon profil par la suite. Je n'ai pas encore complètement abandonné "Harry Potter et la magie des sentiments", mais un travail de grande envergure comme celui-là m'a été impossible pendant un long moment. Afin de me remettre dans l'univers, je compte écrire quelques petits one-shots contenant des idées plus où moins farfelues et explorant un peu l'univers de HP. Je les écrit principalement en anglais, mais elles auront aussi une traduction française. Il s'agit seulement de certaines idées qui me trottent dans la tête depuis un long moment, mais qui ne méritent pas une histoire à eux.

Now that this is dealt with, and if you're still with me, let's go on to the story!

**********************************************************************************

Harry was weary, sweaty and dirty. Not the good kind, either. His bespectacled eyes strained against the darkness as they had for the previous days, maybe weeks since he entered this accursed place. One could never tell, when they hadn't seen the sun in so long. To top it off, the putrid stench in the air now permeated all his torn up clothes. When, and if, he ever got out of there, he doubted even Fiendfire could rid him of this foul odor.

Of course, Harry Potter was a wizard, and not a lousy one at that. If fact, since the death of Albus Dumbledore in his sixth year at Hogwarts, Harry Potter was probably the single most powerful wizard in the world. Well... wizards that fought on the side of good, obviously. Voldemort still had an edge in magical power.

Voldemort, Harry thought, the bane of his existence, and the reason why he was in this bloody place in the first place. The reason he did most of the things he did these days, to be perfectly honest. There wasn't much else to live for, after all.

After the death of aforementioned Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the international wizarding confederation, et yada yada yada... Harry and his two best friends, Ron and Hermione, were sent on a wild goose chase around Great-Britain to find and destroy Voldemort's horcruxes, objects that tethered the hate man-turned-homunculus to life, no matter how many times he was destroyed. They managed to find and destroy all of them. Well really, they managed to stumble their way to all of them under the careful guidance of a well hidden Severus Snape. Even in death, Dumbledore was ever the chess master.

For all his brilliance and tactical intelligence, Dumbledore, had he lived past the tender age of 116 years old, would now have been headmaster to a pile of rubble, Chief Warlock to a destitute organisation and Supreme Mugwump to a disbanded group of old wizard that once wanted to unite and change the world.  
And what the fuck did the title of Grand Sorcerer meant, anyway?

Ho, the world did change, but not for the better.

Harry Potter and his friends, barely adult wizards, went back to Hogwarts to save the day from evil Headmaster Snape, the Carrows siblings and the rapidly approaching Lord Voldemort. They found out Snape was not the traitor the thought he was, before the ex-potion master died and the hand of Voldemort.

Then, everything went to shit.

Voldemort called Harry to him, in the forest, and killed him. Or more precisely, he killed the piece of his own soul inside Harry, and left him for dead in the forest to go attack Hogwarts. His forces took the castle by storm, and even though most of the students had managed to escape via the painting leading to Abelforth's Hog's Head Inn, the bastion that was the school was taken before Harry could come back to his senses.

When he did come back to "life" after his little chat with what was probably a figment of his imagination taking the form of his old headmaster, Voldemort somehow felt him from the inside of the castle. In a voice that lingered as far as Hogsmeade, he called to his young nemesis.

"Harry Potter. I do not know how you managed to survive once again, but if you would kindly come to the top of the astronomy tower, I will gladly separate your head from your shoulders and make sure you stay dead..."

Now, Harry may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, this title belonging to Hermione, and wasn't about to go in there alone when Voldemort had no leverage against him. However, the Dark Lord quickly disabused him of this notion.

As clear as Voldemort's voice, a cry rang out to the confines of Scotland's mountains, heard by everyone in the vicinity.

A female cry.

A female cry of pain.

Ginny's, to be precise.

Hoping against all hope that it was an illusion, a trick by Voldemort to lure him in the school, Harry had nonetheless no choice but to go to his enemy to get killed once more. He was about to do a mad dash for the school grounds in a vain attempt to save the love of his young life when Hagrid found him and had to physically prevent him from doing so. Harry had pummelled the giants everywhere he could reach as his first ever friend in the magical world took him away to Andromeda Tonks house, as he had done before.

The poor woman had already lost her husband Ted earlier in the year, and had just lost her daughter and son in law Remus, getting saddled in the process with Harry's own godson, Theodore "Teddy" Lupin. The Weasley family had also been struck hard, between Fred's death and Ginny's probably similar faith.

The forces of good, that is a rag-tag team of remaining aurors and some barely trained members of the new Order of the Phoenix, tried to take back the castle. The Wizarding monument of education had lost his wards not long after Voldemort took control, as it was not being used as a place of learning as it was meant to be by the founders hundreds of years ago. The battle resulted in a mass grave when the old castle crumbled under the spells from both parties. Voldemort was driven out, but at a steep price. Hagrid found death while physically clearing a way to the headmasters office, bringing down six Death Eaters in the process, permitting access to Harry and Minerva McGonagall into the sanctuary. A heated duel took place between the two and Voldemort, killing the first one and driving the second away. George Weasley, mad at Voldemort's troops after his twin brother's death, set off a series of explosives of his own creation during the battle, burying himself and all the Death Eaters taking residence between the once hallowed halls under tons of rubbles.

After that, the resistance faded back into the woodwork. Ron had pretty much stopped talking to Harry after he let Ginny die, and Harry could not hold it against him, as bad as he felt. The family joined Charlie in Romania, hoping that the war would stay contained in England. Hermione went even farther, in Australia, to give back her parent's memory. That was the last time he heard about both his friends. He wasn't a religious man, but he hoped everyday that they were fine, well disguised, safe.

But Voldemort's ego and rage demanded more than England or Great-Britain. No, he wouldn't be satisfied with anything but the world, and was well on his way to get all of Europe. France, being just across the channel, fell quickly following Great-Britain. The German ministry of magic tried to assemble enough forces trough the ICW to put an end to the budding international war with Italy as his greatest ally. Both fell when Voldemort developed the dark magic equivalent of the muggle atomic bomb using Fiendfire, transforming the rest of the western magical world in ashes and incinerating the ICW in the process. By the time he was in the Slavic countries, they easily fell into step with him rather than being against him.

Harry remembered that Victor Krum, then a national hero, tried to form an uprising before being squashed like a bug by the Dark Lord himself. Brave, but foolish. Fleur had died too, when her politician of a father was too vocal about opposing Voldemort when France was taken. Then whole family had been killed. Voldemort did not take "no" as an answer. He was the last triwizard champion alive.

Of course, all of that took years to happen, and Harry was not inactive during those years. The Order broken and the ministry crushed underfoot, he fled the country the first chance he got, on his own. His two best friends had returned to their families, and he could not blame them for putting their priorities first. In fact, he wanted them as far away as possible from all that was to happen. He never knew if they still lived or not, but figured Voldemort would have taunted him with their deaths or torture if he ever put his filthy paws on them.

During the course of the first five years, Harry was not heard of. He was off training in Geneva, Switzerland, with one of the biggest library in the world for both light and dark arts. Information was never restricted in Switzerland, as they never had any war enemies. When Voldemort came knocking at their door with his working prototype of "Fiendfire bomb" as Harry dubbed it, the Swiss finally took position in the conflict and burned the library before falling under Voldemort's blows. Thank Merlin they did, as Harry could not fathom what Voldemort could do with all the information he had been privy to for years.

His next five years took him to Sri Lanka, where he found the last remaining cult of battle mages, consisting of a very old man and his wife. They first refused to help him, not wanting to take part in the war, but contacted him some months later as he was training alone somewhere in Indonesia. Not wanting their old traditions and knowledge go to waste, they agreed to teach him as much as they could. They died of old age after three or so years of tutelage.

Harry, now almost 30 years old, went back to Europe and tried to form a group from the underground, with people who were angry at the state of things but could do nothing on their own. The budding group, the new order of the phoenix, was just reviving from its ashes when they were betrayed and Voldemort all but ended the organisation.

That day, Harry dueled Voldemort to a standstill in the streets of Rome, Italy. While they both escaped with their lives, they also both sustained important injuries. Even with magic, it was a couple of months before they could clash again.

And clash again they did. Rome was but the first battle. Now that Harry was back on Voldemort's radar after all these years in the east, the Dark Lord wasn't going to let him go, especially after he showed him how dangerous he could be.

February 2008, in Rome. September 2008, Berlin. June 2009, Paris. December 2010, Budapest. Then Barcelona, Warsaw, Bucharest, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Moscow... The list was too long to contemplate. At this point, Harry estimated that he fought the Dark lord two to three times a year, for a total of around sixty times.

Voldemort had taken the world, but he had not taken him yet, and the weight of the prophecy hung over his head like a Damocles Sword. They had become each other's obsession.

For the first couple of years, their battles were fairly even, with a slight advantage to the Dark Lord, be it because of experience or of the situations they found themselves in. A couple of years in, and that gap in experience was filled, bringing them perfectly level. Harry thinned Voldemort's rank by the dozen if not hundreds, but he was now effectively a one man army against a new order. The roles were inverted now, with Harry as the terrorist. A terrorist with whom most of the population agreed, but a terrorist going against the law nonetheless. Their duels leveled small cities and erased villages from the map, but both of them were way past the point of caring for collateral damage, as much as it pained Harry to think so.

One thing became evident as the years went on. Despite the fact that all of Voldemort's horcruxes were destroyed and he couldn't make new ones by fear of destroying the frayed and tattered small piece of soul he had left, Voldemort was not aging. More precisely, he was able to maintain the youth and power of his homunculus body with potions and rituals, while Harry was almost sixty years old now.

Sixty wasn't terribly old for any normal wizard, but most wizards don't battle most of their lives and injure themselves on the daily. Harry probably was medically attended more than the average wizard was in their whole life by the time he was an adult. That, plus considering he hadn't been healed by a real healer in the last thirty years... Scars tended to stay and aches now greeted him every morning.

This was becoming a problem, as he was not as fit for battle as he once was. It was becoming more and more difficult to face Voldemort in their more or less regular jousts, and the last couple of times it was all he could do to escape with his life. He was becoming slower, weaker, and was taking a lot longer to recover between his duels with the Dark Lord.

Harry, unwilling to simply let go and let his nemesis win, did the only thing he could to perpetuate the battle, to ensure that he could continue to confront Voldemort at every chance he got.

He looked into the ways of making a Horcrux of his own.

Of course, he had dabbed into dark magic, as much as to be able to protect against it as for using it, but this was a level he had never reached or studied, nor had he ever considered it before. It took a couple of months and a particularly close battle before he finally considered this step and began researching it.

Unfortunately, of fortunately, Harry never found the information on the foul objects he was looking for. It seemed that Voldemort wanted no competition in the race for immortality, and had gathered all the books and sources of Intel on the subject when he was younger. That was probably why Dumbledore had so much problems finding information on them during Harry's own youth. All he knew was that he needed an object to put part of his soul in, and the tearing of the soul followed an act of murder. The object was not much of a problem, as it could be almost anything, as Harry was not as vain and did not have the delusions of grandeur that Voldemort did. Nor where the murders, as he had no doubt been the plague of Tom's forces for the last half a century.

No, Harry never found the information he was seeking about the horcruxes, but he did find something about their precursor on the small island of Mykonos. The answer to all his problems lied in one word:

Phylactery.

If one thought that Horcruxes were bad, they had never heard of lichdom. But hey, in for a knut, in for a galleon, as they said.

The only problem was, only one was ever found in Egypt in an old pyramid. The cursebreakers tried to unravel it's mysteries for years all over the world before they stripped an enchantment they did not see and rendered the whole thing magically inert without getting any kind of answers from it. They never saw or heard of the Lich that should have been attached to it either, so it could have been a very ornate magical box and nothing more.

The point was that nobody knew if they worked, how they worked and how to make them.

That did not discourage Harry. Four years later, you could find him studying soul magic in China, where emperors of old were said to leave their souls behind to advise their offspring when they had to take the mantle of rulers themselves. There, in a small library just beside the most touristic "Forbidden City", he finally got lucky and found a ritual describing the transfer of souls. He would have to tinker and modify it a bit for his purposes, but it could be done!

The next step of his grand quest for immortality took him in Russia. Being such a big country, it was a place that Voldemort never completely conquered. He had nominal control over everything, but their day to day life was not majorly impacted from it, as Tom simply did not have the manpower to cover such a distance in addition to the rest of Europe yet.

It was in a small back alley shop in Magical Saint-Petersburg that he found what he was looking for: The journal of Grigori Efimovitch Rasputin. The muggles had a fascinating cult regarding him and thousands of theories about healing and "dark magic" had survived the man when he died 1916. The wizarding world knew him well too, but as a powerful and knowledgeable necromancer.

And now, Harry had to add museum theft to his list of crimes.

The old document had been a bit of a let-down at first, describing dark rituals and odd pieces of "magic" that were clearly put there to bedazzle muggles and build the man's reputation. However, Harry could feel the magic emanating from the book and persevered with caution. A couple of months later, he could finally extract a goldmine of information on death magic, animation, and soul manipulation.

And this is why Harry Potter, now 67 years old, was reminiscing the fall of Hogwarts fifty years after the facts while crawling through a hole barely big enough for a cat, his palms and knees bloody and trying not to breathe too deeply lest he retched, in the middle of an anti-magic zone in some random pyramid in Egypt.

An old muggle journal issue had informed him that a group of archeologists tried to explore the pharaoh's tomb some twenty years ago, but that the expedition never came back and they were strange sightings around the pyramid for a couple of weeks after they went in. In the chaos that was the whole wizarding world at that time, the news went unheard, or Gringotts curse breakers would have been on it like nifflers on gold.

So here he was, old but not yet dead, wounded but not yet beaten. Trying to find a Lich in an ancient Egyptian tomb to gain the secret of immortality.

The lack of ability to use magic to help him was a bummer if he ever saw one. He figured it had to do with the overload of death magic he could feel in the air.

Suddenly, he felt a small air current brush against his face. He was probably approaching a bigger room that had at least some kind of air circulation. After hours being cramped into a small space, it would be a welcome change. Good thing he wasn't claustrophobic, his childhood in the cupboard had made sure of that.

Finally, he emerged in a room that, while he could not see for it was always pitch black, at least had the space for him to cautiously rise to his feet and stretch his back in a series of satisfying, if painful, popping sounds.

As he was delighting in being able to move a bit more freely, torches on the wall illuminated. Having stayed in the dark for so long, Harry had to hide his eyes for fear of being blinded by the light. Forcing himself through the pain and blind spots in his already imperfect vision, harry opened his eyes and looked at his surroundings.

The room, as anticipated, was very vast. It's walls, all made of stone, were covered in hieroglyphics symbols, depicting a no doubt fascinating story.

A story Harry had no time to ponder, because he had found what he came in this place for.

On a small dais, separated from him by a couple of stairs, was a massive golden throne.

And on the throne was sitting a figure of nightmare.

All bones and clothes (thankfully), the Lich was wearing a linen cloth in which Harry could see , threaded in gold, runes of protection ranging from decay to blows, to magic. On it's head was the headpiece normally associated with pharaohs, and it's eyes burned a bright red emanating from deep inside it's skull.

A booming voice, echoing in the room, came from the creature sitting twenty paces from him.

"Who are you to come disturb my eternal slumber? I demand answers for this travesty!"

His demands went unanswered. Not because Harry did not want to entertain his new host, but because he found he could not. His throat had become so dry when he saw the Lich that he could not speak anymore.

Trying not to startle it, Harry plunged his hand in the bottomless bag he always carried on him. Tanks the powers above, it still seemed to work in this magically dead space, even if he could not figure out why. His hand clenched around a metallic object, and he pulled the sword of Gryffindor from the small bag.

He had had it with him since the day Neville gave it back to him after decapitating Nagini during the battle of Hogwarts. Poor Neville died only two days after when Voldemort attacked St-Mungo's hospital. The young man and hero wanted to protect his parents and rushed there to help, only finding death for his efforts. The almost second child of the prophecy met a very gruesome death that day. Harry tried not to think too much about it.

Harry braced himself and came back to the present. This was not a time to be distracted. Voldemort was dangerous and Harry was used to battle with him, but this Lich was an unknown, and Harry did not have the power of his wand to contribute to this battle.

The Lich, seeing Gryffindor's blade in Harry's hand, gave something that looked oddly like a sigh, had it been able to breathe at all. It rose slowly from its ornate throne. The magical voice emanated from it once again.

"You would think someone who was stubborn enough and powerful enough to find my throne room would be a little bit more talkative. What does one have to do to get some conversation once in a while..."

Probably not entomb yourself for millenniums, was the answer that stringed forth in Harry's mind. He swallowed hard to fight the dryness in his throat and was about to answer the Lich when he caught sight of a weapon in its right hand.

Well, it would be more accurate to say that he heard the weapon before he saw it, as it was a flail atop a long chain that was dragging on the floor at the feet of the creature. It seemed to be made out of some kind of stone and decorated with bronze, which was normal as this pharaohs probably existed during the bronze age.

The creature slowly descended from the platform using the long rotten carpet covered steps. When it came almost in weapon contact range, Harry brought his sword up in a defensive stance, and waited.

The Lich stopped just shy of the blade ranged and said:

"I see you have chosen your way to open the gates of the afterlife. For your intrusion into the inner sanctum of the god-king, I sentence you to death"

As soon as the last syllable crossed the air between them, the flail spinned so fast through the distance separating them that all Harry could do was intercept the head with the strong of his blade. He immediately regretted that decision. The Lich's weapon was HEAVY, and he almost lost his grip on the sword's hilt. Furthermore, the flail was very magically charged, and he could feel the magic in the sword fight to keep it from simply turning to dust.

Fortunately, the blade was goblin made, which meant it absorbed the properties of dangerous things it struck, like it did the basilisk venom in his second year at school. Harry wished he could have used it against a dementor to see if it acquired the power to suck souls. It certainly would have been useful in this scenario.

The blade almost thrown out of his hands and needing a second to adjust to the magical power it absorbed, Harry was forced to dodge the next two swings, one coming uncomfortably close to his head, brushing with his wild grey and white hair.

When the flail passed the second time around, Harry saw an opening to hit the Lich in the side, but was not nearly fast enough as the magically enhanced creature, not seeking to reverse the path of its weapon, simply made it spin even faster around his head, coming towards the wizard again.

One again, Harry interposed the magical blade in the path of the flail's head. Once again, he felt the magical backlash in the magic of the sword, but it was a lot tamer than the first time, and his arms and shoulders were not jarred from the shock as they had been the first time. Harry saw that is slowed the flail marginally.

Trying to find another opening in his enemy's guard, he intercepted the flail twice more, each time making it easier to do so. He was about to block a third time and move in for the "kill", but did not catch the flail's head on the strong of his blade. The Lich had seen what he was trying to do and altered the path of its weapon slightly. The chain caught the edge of the sword, and in a small shower of sparks the head continued his way and hit Harry in the shoulder.

Thankfully, most of the shock was absorbed by the runes in what remained of a dragon skin body armor he had made for him in Romania decades ago. However, he was still projected at least five feet across the floor under the force of the blow.

Shoulder burning, Harry had to take a moment to assess the damage and saw that his shoulder armor was rapidly rotting, confirming that the flail had some strong curse on it. He quickly cut the straps on his shoulder armor with the edge of the sword of Gryffindor, lest the rotting propagate up his arm and kill him like it did Dumbledore all those years ago. Without a potion master to mitigate the damage, Harry would be dead in minutes.

While he was doing this, he also dodged another blow. The Lich had moved towards him at an unnatural speed and sent its weapon flying in a downward arc, embedding the weapon in the ground at Harry feet. Harry sent his own weapon in a horizontal arc in the hopes of cutting the creature in half.

The Lich drew back very quickly, and the blow glanced against its magically resistant robes. Harry felt the goblin magic in the sword compensate. Next time, he should be able to cut through the tunic, runes or not.

Harry had to jump back again as the flail was yanked from the ground, not wanting it to be even close to the withering curse on it. Better not take any chances here, as he would die even if it only nicked him on his skin.

Two other dodges later, Harry saw another chance and cautiously blocked the flail again, moving in to deliver a blow to the creature's ribs. His attack got through the magically fortified tunic and cut a bunch of ribs under, but the creature was not slowed by its injuries in the slightest and backhanded Harry across the face, sending him spinning into the platform.

The creature laughed.

"Fool, did you really think trying to attack where my heart once was would get you far? I left behind the weakness of human flesh thousands of years ago."

It was right, of course, Harry realised. His instincts had taken the best of him, but he knew he literally had to separate each piece of the undead creature in order to destroy it.

Which he would have to do soon. His age and injuries, plus the fatigue of his trip through the pyramid where catching up to him and his muscles and joints where screaming in protest.

He fought like this for an undetermined amount of time, getting ever so tired when he finally saw his next chance to take out the creature. Again, he blocked the flail, but this time the sword intercepted the Lich's backhand, cutting cleanly through the forearm.

In any enemy, the pain of the attack would have given him an edge. As it is, Harry had to scramble away from the undead as the Lich tried to impale him with the bone fragment left of its arm. Lovely, really.

The creature, in a frenzy of blows becoming more and more powerful, backed Harry in a corner near it's throne until the wizard had no other choice but to physically block the Lich's weapon. Even with his magically enhanced blade, this was beginning to be a tiresome task, his physical capabilities waning. A final blow caught the guard of the sword straight on, barely missing his fingers, and blew him in the platform wall behind him. He slowly slid to the floor, the air sucked out of his lungs by the powerful blow.

The Lich advanced towards his prone form, the flail never losing momentum, always following the same destructive course. Harry tired mind suddenly had an idea, which was more like his last chance to defeat his foe, really.

The undead arrived in range of Harry and pause for a moment.

"Is that all you can manage, wizard? Has civilization fallen so low that it has forgotten the old ways of war? Pathetic." it said in an almost disappointed voice. While it had been injured twice, Harry would have been dead first if he didn't wear his old dragon skin armor, and had definitely been on the back foot most of the time during this fight.

"Civilization has fallen indeed" Harry talked for the first time in this encounter, before coughing violently. The pain in his ribs told him a couple of them were broken by the shock with the wall, at least.

"Be that as it may," said the creature, "here is your sentence". The flail twirled once around its wearer's head, then twice, and finally came for Harry's head. The wizard took the sword of Gryffindor and stabbed it through the floor between his legs, and then slumped to the ground.

As if in slow motion, Harry saw the head of the flail pass so close to his face that he could swear it would at least take his nose off. The weapon continued his deadly arc until the chain met the blade embedded in the ground. The flail's head trajectory then changed and lodged itself in the chest cavity of the Lich, which had gotten closer to hit him.

If an undead could be surprised, Harry was sure this one would have been. Of course, he saw nothing in those red, bright and unnatural eyes. The creature, seeming stunned, looked at its own weapon in his chest, and began to laugh.

It was an horrible sound, deep and grating on Harry's nerve. Fortunately, he didn't have to hear it for long, as the withering curse took effect and the squelleton of the Lich fell to dust almost instantly.

Harry, leaving the sword in the ground, got up as fast as he could with his injuries. The excitation and adrenaline of the moment was enough to carry him as he saw a black shadow come out of the pile of dust and rot that was the Lich seconds prior. If he could only follow the soul of the Lich to its phylactery, all these years of research would find a sense...

The soul of the pharaoh crossed the room almost lazily before it rested in an almost humanoid shape on top of his throne. For a second, Harry had a depiction of a man of flesh and bones, before the insubstantial being sank trough and into the throne.

Harry had expected a small box with enchantment and some scrolls of religious and magical meaning inside, like the first phylactery that those searchers had found centuries ago.

"Fuck.", was all he could say. How was he supposed to bring a freaking huge throne back now, without magic and not knowing his way?

As he thought about this problem, Harry felt the link with his one remaining friend in the world establish itself with his magic. The presence of the Lich seemed to be what was blocking magic in the whole pyramid, and Harry felt that wizarding magic still wouldn't work very well, especially in his exhausted state, but...

"Dobby!"

And there he was. The now old elf that had been looking over Harry for most of his life. Harry didn't know where he would be without his free elf companion today, and often thanked the powers above that his seeker reflexes had permitted him to catch the knife Bellatrix hurled at the elf, that day when they made their escape at the Malfoy manor, fifty years ago.

After all, what were two fingers on his left hand, in the grand scheme of things?

Harry was brought back to the present by the fussing elf. His companion, always as energetic, was berating him in an enthusiast, if older sounding voice.

"Mr. Harry Potter Sir must not put himself in danger in that way again. Dobby just felt the connection back between himself and Mr. Harry Potter Sir and..." the elf went on and on and on.

Ho yeah, certain things never changed... Mr. Harry Potter Sir indeed.

Once Harry had been tended to with bone knitting and energizing potions, he asked Dobby to step back and examined the throne.

The literature was nonexistent on the subject, but as Harry examined the runes and magic around the object, he determined that the phylactery, if not destroyed in the next seven days, would regenerate the Lich a new body.

As always, nothing was ever simple when it came to Harry. He could not get rid of the phylactery, as it was the sole reason of his coming here. There was no information anywhere on how to make one, so this one might be the last one on earth.

Or there might be dozens more, all protected like this one had been. Harry could not care less, he had found his. With the help of Dobby's magic, they moved the throne in the middle of the room, on the open ground. Then, using runic carving tools he had in his bottomless bag, and Rasputin's journal for reference, he drew an intricate symbol on the ground, thus preparing the ritual.

The Russian healer and necromancer had taken a great interest in dementors, with them being used in his country long before they were used in England. He had eventually developed a very complex ritual that could destroy a soul. That, while it sounded terribly useful, was not so impressive. The soul had to be free, which meant it wasn't bound to a body, and Rasputin never encountered Horcruxes, or at least his journal never mentioned them. He never "finished" the ritual development before he died so it could affect souls attached to a body, which was just as good. In the horcrux situation, it could have been very useful, but days of preparation for a complex and costly ritual when one could simply destroy the object was just not worth it.

It took three days for Harry to complete the carvings and ensure they were perfect. He barely stopped to eat and sleep, at Dobby's insistence. In those three days, a shape had started to develop over the throne and was slowly solidifying. As fascinating as watching the rebirth of the Lich was, Harry really wanted to destroy it before it came back completely.

Finally, he completed the ritual by chanting the words he had practices numerous time before, taking great care to enunciate every syllable, as the incantation was in Russian and he did not even talk that language. When he was done chanting, the room was silent for a minute before an otherworldly cry, a sound even uglier than the creature's laugh had been, blared out in the closed space, echoing painfully on the walls. The magical torches on the wall all went out, and then there was silence.

"Lumos"

The second the magical aura of the creature died, Harry felt his connection with magic come back. It was a welcome change, he had almost forgot what it meant to be a wizard in his time here. Magical light now inundated the room, coming from his wand.

The throne was once more empty. Harry still felt the magic coming off of it, signaling his phylacteric properties were intact, but the Lich had definitely been separated and sent to the next Great Adventure, as Dumbledore would have said.

"Alright Dobby", he said, "it's done! Time to go back to the hideout. Go hide the throne and only come back to me with it when I call you"

The elf complied, as he always did. Well, when it didn't concern Harry not eating or sleeping right, at least.

His magic back in full force, Harry tore a small hole in the anti-apparition ward that were a lot less advanced than what modern wizards could do and the second after was gone from the pyramid.

Thankfully, it was almost night where he apparated in a small back alley in Cairo, Egypt. He had figured he would stay not too far from the pyramid while he was researching it and had paid the whole month in advance, only using a week before he went after the Lich.

He entered the building and was immediately besieged by noises and a very happy greeting. Before him were the matron of the establishment and four of her "maids", all talking to him at the same time. The matron was going on in ages, but all of her servants were young and very, very beautiful. Their beauty was only enhanced by the revealing outfit they wore. Dark skin, curves and eyes to kill for aplenty.

Yeah, Harry had chosen a whorehouse as a base of operation. Beside the eye candy, his intentions were completely pragmatic. He rented a room here, had the young women "serve" him, even though he never touched them and repelled their advances. They basically fed and sheltered him, and he paid them more in return that what they made in a lifetime, hence the enthusiasm to see him come back.

The matron said something to one of the girls, who must have been in her twenties, and Harry remembered to put his translation charm back on. However, the "follow me" finger move the young woman showed Harry was universal, and he followed her to his room.

Said room was sparse. It had a bed, a small table with two stools and a bath in the corner.

As soon as they were in the room, the young woman began to undress him. The first time this had happened, Harry had been very embarrassed. The fact that he only understood this was a whorehouse after the fact because he didn't speak the language was a secret he would take to the grave, so embarrassing that it was.

However, the bath had already been filled with water and the young woman said:

"You need to bath, you stink!"

The words would have probably felt insulting if uttered by someone else, but the way she said it made it seem funny to him. He hadn't cleaned himself in at least... a couple of weeks, he guessed. He would need a calendar soon.

Plus the fact that the translation charm did not take away accent, and hers sounded very exotic and... Harry wrenched himself from that line of thought. He was to old now to be having these king of thoughts.

Also, she didn't comment on the blood on his cloths. This was worth its weight in gold.

"I can remove my own clothes, thank you very much" he answered with a small smile.

She stepped back, but kept staring at him.

Nobody ever called anyone else by name in this establishment, to preserve anonymity for one, and because the translating spell did not translate names and he could not for the life of him pronounce theirs.

One other thing was their complete lack of modesty, which probably came with the line of work really. He had always insisted that he could undress himself, but they always kept watching him when he did get ready to bath, and that always unnerved him.

That being said, the boy-who-lived was not really a boy anymore, as he had some experiences mostly in the muggle world or in other countries, but his life had not exactly brought him to have multiple sexual encounters, and certainly not in this kind of establishment.

He quickly undressed himself, trying not to blush under her lustful eyes, and quickly got in the tub so the bubbles would hide most of him. They always looked at him like this, and even more as the time went on. He had to guess they looked at all their customers like that, as the other men probably wanted a very eager servant for the night, but there always seemed to be something special in their eyes when they looked at him. If he had to guess, he would have said that was because he never asked anything sexual out of them, even when they made it perfectly clear they were there for that specific reason.

Lost in his thought, which was definitely a thing that happened often these days, he was startled when soft hands began massaging his shoulders, lathering soap over them.

"I can..." he began.

"I know", she answered, cutting him off. "You can bathe yourself. You are a very good man, and you are tired. Let me take care of you, just once..." she said while continuing her ministrations. He groaned under the relief her hands brought to his sore muscles and stopped fighting.

The massage and cleaning continued for a small while, and Harry was really starting to enjoy the experience and fully relaxing. He almost groaned in displeasure as her hands quit his back for a second. The second after, he really did let off a groan of pleasure and surprise as her bare chest squeezed against his back and her hands went to his most private parts, gently caressing it.

"Let me take care of you" she repeated one more, this time in his ear, and her voice sent shivers down his spine and everywhere in his body. "Just once?"

Harry slowly turned towards her. As he had felt on his back, she was completely in the nude and so, so beautiful. He averted his eyes, not wanting to stare, but she caught his jaw in the hand that wasn't still on his manhood and held it.

Harry's resolution almost broke. He really did feel twenty again, the first time he did manage to get Ginny out of his head with a young beauty from another continent. His blood was pounding, his body was ready to take the young and willing woman who was still pleasuring him and looking at him with care and lust.

Would it hurt? Considering what he was about to do with his life, could he indulge... one last time?

"No!" he blurted out, surprising her and effectively stopping her ministrations. "I'm sorry," he told her quickly after seeing her shocked and hurt look, "I have some other things to do tonight... now is not the time."

And it never would be. Harry almost cursed himself for being so impulsive. He regretted the second the words left his lips.

The beautifully exotic woman, still nude, nodded sadly and picked up her garment, walked towards the door while giving her a full view of her arse, and finally quit the room.

Harry fell back into the tub, groaning against his own stupidity.

Still, it was true he had things to do. He probably would not have even bathed if she hadn't been so insistent on it.

"Dobby!"

With a small popping noise, the elf was back at his side, the throne with him. Without even making the effort to put some clothes back on, Harry asked him:

"You remember everything you have to do?"

They had talked about it many times, of course, and the elf was as sharp as ever in his old age.

"Yes Mr. Harry Potter Sir. Dobby does not like it, but Dobby will do it for Mr. Harry Potter Sir." said the elf with a sad voice.

Harry put his hand on the elf's small shoulder.

"Thanks Dobby, I could never have done it without you... let's begin shall we?"

Dobby only noted and transfigured the bed surface into stone. He also conjured a bucket and summoned one of the stools while Harry, still naked as the day he was born, lay on the cold stone bed surface.

Out of the bottomless bag came four potions, all of them very potent and very illegal. One to numb pain to nothing while retaining consciousness, one to paralyse completely the person that ingests it, one that would make him very aware of his magic and a last one a calming draught to calm his nerves. He was a wreck right about now.

Once the potions were ingested, Harry laid back in the bed and began to lose sensation and movement until he could only move his eyes. As quickly as he could, he fell back into his occlumency shields and concentrated like he had never concentrated in his life, willing to merge his soul and mind with his magic, of which the potion had bubbling right under the surface.

"Is Mr. Harry Potter Sir ready?" Dobby's voice sounded distant. Harry deliberately batted his eyelashes once to signify he was.

He heard Dobby take a deep breath, as if bracing himself, before he felt something cold run the length of his right foot and leg. He then felt fingers touch his foot and calves, and heard a dull "thunk" as something fell into the conjured bin beside the bed.

He knew what was happening. It was his plan, after all.

He needed immortality, but could not build his own phylactery, so he would steal a fully functional one.

The only problem was, to be a Lich, one must dispose of one's flesh and other organs to etch the bones with runes, the same that were on the phylactery to be exact.

Dobby was slicing him up, removing bits of him and chucking them in the bin while Harry was awake and conscious.

And to think he had asked for it, too.

The procedure took most of the night, Dobby working methodically and carefully. His entire right leg was stripped, then his left. Next, his manhood, that he could have used one last time before it went, was stripped away. Harry fought to maintain his grip on his occlumency, bunching his soul and magic together against the onslaught of madness.

Next, Dobby opened him up. By that time, the potions had been completely absorbed in the blood and were working directly on his magic, which he fought to retain despite the fact that his bodily function were failing him as Dobby removed bladder, stomach, liver and everything in between.

At a certain point, he saw the most loyal of house elves hovering over him, in his bloody hands a knife that was just as bloody.

"Dobby thinks maybe Mr. Harry Potter Sir will not want to see this, so Dobby thinks he should remove the eyes first." An exhausted and emotionally wrecked Dobby told him, before bringing the knife to Harry's right eye, then his left, depriving him from his vision. His eyes, so much like his mother's...

It was a nice thought, really, Harry realised. It was enough that he could feel the skin, muscles and cartilage being pulled from his face and his brain being scrapped trough his nose without seeing the crying face of his only friend left in the world while he was doing it.

At this point, Harry was maintaining his control over his magic with his soul, and his control over his soul with his magic. Hopefully it would not be too long...

Soon enough, Harry felt the metal tools on his bones, carving the runes he needed to bind to the phylactery. As the runes were carved, Harry felt his magic and consciousness seep into his bones, making the feat of balancing both without organs less and less demanding.

Harry could faintly hear some birds signing outside when the scrapping sound and sensation on his bones stopped. He felt Dobby take his hand in his and wordlessly put it on a cool, metallic object. The throne. His new phylactery.

Wordlessly, channeling his magic trough his very bones, Harry cast the final spell, the one that permitted Chinese emperors of old to assist and educate the future generations by transferring their souls onto paper scrolls.

He bound himself to the throne of the old Pharaoh, bringing him, finally, to Lichdom. Here, in a small room of a whorehouse lost somewhere in Cairo, Harry Potter became a Lich.

As if his eyes opened, Harry began to see. Of course, he had no eyelid and could not open his eyes, but it gave him that impression. He sat up on the bed, his body moved by necromantic magic.

It worked.

Him, Harry Potter, had managed to become a Lich, a legendary undead not heard about in thousands of years!

It worked, somehow, by mixing Russian, Chinese and Egyptian magic, the three of them from very different branches that went their separate ways at the beginning of magic itself.

Harry heard a pained cough, et looked a Dobby, lying on the floor, clearly unwell. This experience had to be very taxing on the old elf, be it physically and emotionally. Harry knelt, marveling at how he barely felt his body move as is was so smooth and without the pain of the living.

He took the back of Dobby's head in his hand and lifted it gently off the ground. The house elf opened his eyes.

"Mr. Harry Potter Sir looks scarier like this. Dobby bets the evil Dark Lord will be very afraid", he finished the sentence with violent coughing.

Harry smiled, which probably was not a very nice sight, what with having no face or lips, and asked his friend:

"What is wrong Dobby. I knew this would be difficult, but you seem... Ill..."

His own voice surprised him. It sounded like him, but a bit more... cavernous. The sound was not emanating from his throat anymore, it was carried by magic from... somewhere.

"Mr. Harry Potter Sir is not a wizard anymore. By becoming Lich, Mr. Harry Potter Sir broke the bond with Dobby. Dobby is old already. It is time to go..."

Harry was hit with a wave of sadness. Ultimately, he may have lost all his bodily function. His body might be almost indestructible, his soul immortal, but he still had feelings. Nothing could protect him from the grief he felt at that moment.

He had not foreseen that the change in his magic would not let any for Dobby to feed off of.

"You knew about it, didn't you Dobby? You felt you would die if you did it?" He asked.

"Yes, Mr. Harry Potter Sir." the elf's voice was full of emotions, but regret was not one of them.

"And you did it anyway?" Harry asked again. If his throat had been human still, he would have choked up, unable to speak any further. As it was, he hoped his voice carried his emotions as well as it did his words.

"Yes, Mr. Harry Potter Sir." The elf answered again, a small smile playing on his lips.

"Why?" Was all Harry could ask. Dobby had gone through with the whole operation, all the while dying slowly as they lost their connections, and never complained once.

"Because..." Dobby had to take a breath, "because Mr. Harry Potter Sir is the best wizard Dobby ever met, and Dobby knows that Mr. Harry Potter Sir will be the best Lich there is. I did it... " another violent couch wracked his small body, " because Mr. Harry Potter Sir asked Dobby..."

Had he had tear duct, Harry would definitely have been bawling his eyeballs out at that moment.

"Dobby, can I ask you a last favor, please?"

"Anything Mr. Harry Potter Sir ask, Dobby can do." The old and dying elf answered serenely, his eyes gently closing.

"Even calling me... just Harry?"

Dobby's body was wracked again, but he did not seem to be in pain anymore. In fact, if his grin was anything to go by, he was laughing. He said, in a waning voice:

"Dobby could always call you by your name, Harry. Dobby just liked to take the piss"

And, just like that, on this last joke which had lasted fifty-five years, Dobby the free house elf was no more.

Full of grief, Harry got up again. Mechanically, not even thinking about it, he conjured some robes for himself and put them on. He turned the bed from stone back into soft fabric, and vanished the bucket containing... well, him, really. No need for the nice ladies to find such a gruesome scene in their establishment.

Touching the throne, he sent it back to the inner sanctum in the pyramid, where it would be safe for the time being.

He conjured a mirror and took a look at himself.

A creature of horror stared back at him, every bit as horrifying as the other Lich had been. He had hoped he would make a slightly more presentable Lich, but it seemed such a thing was impossible. He felt doubly sorry for Dobby, his face was not a good last sight.

Ho well. At least, his eyes were shining emerald green.

Shaking off the incredibly vain thoughts, Harry vanished the mirror, grabbed Dobby's corpse, and vanished.

On the coast of England, he buried his last friend under a pouring rain. Soaking through the fabric of his robes, passing between his bones.

Fifty years. Fifty years of battle, research and madness.

It was time to end the madness.

Harry reached with his magic. Enhanced by his new status as an undead, he reached the whole of Great-Britain. Voldemort must not have been overseeing things in other countries, because Harry felt him in the wreckage that was Hogsmeade, five decades earlier. The village had not been destroyed, but it became a ghost town after a big Death Eaters raid in 1999.

Harry apparated here.

Ghost town was not actually an expression, there were actually ghosts in here. Nobody knew why exactly, but everyone that died in the raid was forevermore bound to this place as a ghost. That explained why Hogsmeade village, who had endured since the time of the founders, was never rebuild since the raid. Not the best neighbors, you see...

Harry walked up to the front door of what was the three broomstick, feeling Voldemort's magical signature inside. It was said that Tom had tried many times to exorcise the place since so he could use the still warded village as a safe haven from the muggle world, but to no avail. The pureblood population had to live elsewhere.

Not that Voldemort cared even a little bit about the statute of secrecy or wanted to hide from muggles, but he knew he could not take them on just yet. That is why he developed means to cause more massive scale destruction. A muggle airstrike or nuclear bomb would still go through notice-me-not wards and blow up everything. It was believed that Voldemort's plan was to begin his culling of muggles once he finished annexing all of Europe and "purifying" it from the "bad blood". Thankfully, he still had some years to go in Russia before he would be done.

Voldemort, while being good at creating ghosts, was apparently not all that good at banishing them.

Harry lifted his hand and hurled a fireball through the Inn's door. The projectile grew as it went before detonating and gutting the whole building, engulfing everything in flames. It would not kill Tom, not even close in fact, but it was an nice way to begin a duel.

From the wreckage, Voldemort emerged, singed but still mostly untouched. He looked at Harry, clearly not recognizing him, and was about to talk when an unseen hand took him and hurled him through the walls of the three next houses.

Harry watched, amused, as a whole wall came flying at him only to be banished before contact. Voldemort was up, and he was pissed! A number of spells headed towards Harry, but he shielded all of them.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Asked his nemesis, his voice full of rage. He had not seen Harry in at least four years and probably hoped their last duel had done him in.

"You don't recognise me, Tom? I am shocked!" Harry answered while sending lightning at his enemy.

Tom had a moment of pause, before he said:

"Potter, so you're not dead yet. I knew I recognized the style. After all, we've battled countless time in the past years. I thought you gave up, seeing as you're an old and battered man now"

Ha, Voldemort. His taunts were almost missed. Almost, but not quite.

He clearly had not seen Harry's face under his cowl, nor his gloved bony hands.

Feeling Harry's attention elsewhere, Voldemort took the occasion to fire off a killing curse at him.

Killing curse which Harry did not even try to defend from. He could be destroyed, but not killed by this mean anymore.

Harry was about to launch into a diatribe about how Tom could not kill him anymore, but Voldemort's never gave him the chance. Panicked after his killing curse didn't do the job, he fired about sixty curses in twenty seconds flat, showing why he was a renowned duelist and a powerful wizard. Harry was blown to dust before he could begin speaking.

"Fuck, that was fast. Less talking and more killing next time"

A week later, Harry finished reforming his body in the pyramid, and went after Voldemort again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Times at least fifteen times.

He had begun to attack Tom's minion, managing to kill dozens of them every time they managed to bring him down once. Troop morale was at an all time low. Who could blame them? They were living a nightmare, fighting a war with an immortal enemy.

"Tom, you can blow me back as many times as you want." Harry had told his enemy during one of their battle, in Italy. "You can beat me a hundred more times, but all I need is to get lucky ONCE, and all that you've achieved will be lost!"

That was before eating a massive Fiendfire to the face and destroying half of Pompeii. They would probably blame it on the volcano erupting again.

And then, one day, after decimating his troops and making the rest desert, Harry cornered Voldemort at the ancient siege of the ICW, in Geneva. There, a high pitched battle took place. In the end, it was said that Voldemort just gave up, completely fed up with a Harry Potter "that just wouldn't die". Harry had the graciousness to lift his cowl in a final explanation, before stabbing the homunculus's foul heart with the sword of Gryffindor and severing his head.

Voldemort, while surprise, died with a laugh in his throat, the irony of the situation being too much, even for him. His arch-nemesis, Boy-who-lived, golden boy of Gryffindor, "Dumbledore's man", the Chosen One... had found what he, Tom Marvollo Riddle, heir of Slytherin, Dark Lord, had looked for all his life.

He also understood all of what it meant for the now undead man.

Harry Potter would never see his friends and family again.

Harry, for his part, let the magical world rebuild itself. People wouldn't understand what he had become, the sacrifices he had made. If someone ever destroyed him and his phylactery, which was not likely, his soul might find the way to the next great adventure, but it might also be simply destroyed.

Time would tell, maybe.

Back in the pyramid, Harry sat on his stolen throne, and spoke to the empty room.

"Herm... now what?"

The End. 

Hey! Hope you liked it. It has been in my head for a while, so I just decided to write it and be done with it. A little bit of original ideas, I would say. The move with the sword vs. flail was not from me, unfortunately. The credits goes to Hemon Taurus. If you can read French, I highly suggest his work, if it's even still up on the internet.

If you had fun reading this piece of nonsense, comment and subscribe, and I'll try to come back with more... eventually!

All the best,

Marchemort


End file.
